Hmmm, AMD has been around since the late 1960s and have been second sourcing or competing with Intel for all those years. They have failed miserably as a company to get anywhere over 20% of the market for any sustained period of time and still are not making any real movement in that direction, but now they are going to explode in a couple of years to 30%. Well, OK, this makes sense, particularly since they do not sell to Dell and Dell keeps gaining market share. Also, with mobile becoming a more important component of overall sales, and Intel's far superior product line and sales in this area, AMD is still going to gain massive market share. The world is flat too.
In China, VIA should gain some market share since their processors (VIA bought an American company called Centaur from IDT, as well as Cyrix which they killed for obvious reasons) are very low cost and very low power and sell better in markets where the buyers are less affluent (I have one of their processors, it runs at 800 MHz and is slower than a K6-III+ of mine at 550 MHz, and the floating point could make even a man with hair on his back cry). Plus, since VIA is the parent company, it gives the impression of being Asian (even though the processors are designed in America by Centaur) and so will get some preference by Asian customers.
So, it seems VIA has to gain some market share, particularly in Asia. Intel probably will too, since they have an excellent mobile platform and Dell inexorably gains market share, and AMD's product mix will probably never be as favorable as it is now. Intel's "even" processors have always been good, from the 286 to the 486, to the Pentium Pro, and if the P8 follows this trend, it could create huge problems for AMD. They got a free ride with the horrible P7 core, and still did gain share. If Intel creates an equal processor to the Athlon 64, and this they could do in their sleep since the Pentium M is already better, it will spell big problems for AMD. It should be somewhat better. Still, AMD is going to gain market share in this timeframe, somehow. Good grief, they must think we are pretty gullible.
| Date: 09/07/05 05:50:02 PM]


